Stranded
by mauvemarauder
Summary: Bella plans to spend her summer tutoring 17-year-old Edward on a deluxe, tropical resort. But plans go awry when their plane crashes, leaving them stranded on an abandoned island. Away from society with only the other to depend on, age and social norms fall away. AH. E/B.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This chapter is very Jacob/Bella heavy and also features a slightly immature Edward. This is all intentional. So far (to the point I've currently write) this is a very emotional fic that deals heavily with dependence and how one event can change who you fundamentally are as a person. I hope you enjoy and appreciate any ideas and reviews. This is my first story, be kind!**

Chapter 1

Bella Swan dreamt of silent death, of seat belts that wouldn't undo and planes submerged in black, unforgiving ocean. A pale hand clutched hers, in desperation or true affection she did not know. All she knew was that breath escaped her no matter how hard she tried to inhale. Vivid splotches of violet and turquoise clouded her vision, this must be death she thought distantly..

"Shhh, honey, you're having a nightmare." Her boyfriend Jacob Black crooned, his soft voice bringing her back to life.

She sat up abruptly, gasping for breath. "The plane crashed."

His arm wrapped around her. "Maybe you shouldn't go." The words _stay here with me _hung between them, unspoken. At the time she had accepted it, tutoring some rich kid in an island paradise for a small fortune had seemed like a dream come true. But the closer the day came, the longer two months away from home, no, she corrected herself, away from _Jake,_ seemed.

They had been friends for most of their lives. It was only in the past five months they had begun dating. It had surprised them both how easy, how right, it felt to be something more. She was twenty five and he was twenty four- they were both ready for something to feel right, permanent even,

She stroked his dark, silky hair. She was crazy about Jake's hair. "If I had my way, I would never leave this bed, but I made a promise."

Jake grinned impishly as he rolled on top of her. "Your plane doesn't leave for five hours."

Edward Cullen was exhausted. He was intellectually aware that only an idiot would stay up all night binge drinking when he was still recovering from mono. But he was seventeen and intelligence had played little part in his decision making last night.

"You look a little less green now." His best friend Emmett McCarthy observed cheerfully. as he parked his rusty, old Chevy in the airport drop-off lane.

Edward groaned. "Hopefully, my trans-pacific flight is enough recovery time. If Esme makes me spend another day in bed, especially when I could be taking in some waves or snorkeling, I'm going to kill myself."

"I feel so bad for you, Eddie, going on this elaborate vacation in another part of the world." Emmett rolled his eyes. "Like, when you're making time with hot island babes or laying out in the sand, you'll be sitting there thinking 'I wish I was working at Subway this summer like McCarthy'."

Edward made a crude gesture, but he grinned loosely. "But you won't just be making footlongs, you'll be making time with that hot blonde from last night." He sighed dramatically. "While, in between family dinners and outings, I'll be fitting in those months of school work I missed with the assistance of some slave driver tutor."

"You said she was hot!" Emmett accused.

"Slave drivers can't be hot? I've seen your porn drive man and know you don't believe that." Before Emmett could form some crude response to Edward's jab, a horn thumped behind them signaling an end to the prolonged presence in the lane of traffic. "See you in the fall, buddy." He said ruefully.

"Hell yeah, man, senior year!" And with a brief fist bump he was off, maneuvering a summer-sized suitcase through embracing couples and oversized families. Time for a boring ass, but most of all excessively long, flight with only his new tutor for company. His parents were already on location to decorate their newest vacation home and his siblings, Alice and Jasper, would not be leaving until tomorrow due to a last minute change of plans.

He just hoped she wouldn't try to small talk him into oblivion and would respect the sacredness of his iPod head phones.

Bella sighed into Jake's mouth. Her suggestion that they make a summer of memories had been met with ardent adoration since the early hours of the morning and he showed no signs of ceasing. "I just saw my student check-in."

"Yeah," He murmured, trailing his hands up her back. "Isn't that something?"

"I should probably go sit with him." She said weakly. "And touching you before we're going into an airport bathroom and making like congress."

He nodded, moving his hand from her lower back to his coat pocket. "Ok, but before you go, I want you to have this." He gave her the square, velvet box easily, confident in its reception. "I was going to wait until August." He shrugged broad shoulders.

"Why didn't you?" She asked curiously, revealing a delicate diamond ring from the box. She recognized the ring instantly as his deceased mother's and slid it on her finger. It fit.

"Because it's yours," He said simply.

"It's mine." She agreed. "And so are you. So, I'll call you when we get to the island and we'll get a skype schedule worked out."

"Alright, I love you, don't die." He grinned and she smiled back, he had been telling her that since she was nine years old.

"I promise." And then he was gone and she felt slightly torn without him. She touched the ring at her finger lightly, as she walked towards Edward Cullen.

He was a good looking boy, with short, cropped reddish brown hair and a slight air of privilege. His recent illness had left him on the thin side and she suspected in a year's time he'd be heavier and taller, in the way boys became around that age. "Hey Edward, are you ready for our flight?"

He was immersed in his text and her greeting startled him. "I guess," He shrugged. "I hate flying but at least it's the red eye."

She nodded. "Maybe we'll sleep through it."

"Yeah," He agreed, his eyes returning to his texts. Bella suspected that she should use this time to connect with Edward, ask about his friends or extracurricular activities, but they were about to be on an 10 hour flight and she decided that the least she could do is spare them both incessant small talk.

They spent the next twenty minutes in mostly silence before boarding the flight, each taking advantage of the cell connection. They would have the entire summer to get to know each other Bella reminded herself when she felt a pang of guilt at her negligence.


	2. Chapter 2

The flight to Thailand lasted seventeen hours. Since they had left the Seattle airport at ten pm, they arrived in Thai at 3 pm in US time. It was 5 am local time. They had an hour layover until they could catch the small charter flight to the little island where they would reside the summer at the cheasily named _Paradise Resort_.

And that, Bella thought with a sigh, would be another hour flight. While the other passengers on the flight had slept for the duration of the flight, she had only managed brief spurts of rest, too unnerved by her nightmare the previous night, instead mostly reading. She hadn't even managed to get to know Edward, as he slept for most of those 16 hours.

She turned to him now, walking with a distinct jaunt as they unboarded. _Hell,_ he was even whistling. She reminded herself that he was not trying to annoy her. It wasn't his fault she was exhausted and he was not. "You must be excited to see your parents."

Edward grinned crookedly at her and she decided when he grew up he would be more than nice looking, he would be heart stopping. "Yeah, but they only left a few days ago. I'm more excited about hitting the water. Being stuck in bed these last couple of months has sucked."

"Do you surf?" She asked, finding herself smiling back despite feeling nothing more like lying down and sleeping for a lengthy period of time. His energy was infectious.

"When I can, not a lot of good surfing in Seattle." He informed her. "But it's the greatest thing ever, like walking on air. I hope to spend more time on the ocean than on land this summer."

"Sounds a little like cliff diving." She mused. "Some of my friends are crazy about it. They jump by La Push Beach."

"That's by the reservation right? Carlisle and I go hiking in the woods near there." He made a loose gesture to the Timberland hiking boots he wore. "Are you from there?"

"I'm from Forks, but I teach there. And my boyfriend lives there." She added.

"Tall, dark and dangerous right? That dude you were making time with?"

She winced a little, embarrassed that her new student had seen her in such an intimate, simply juvenile situation. "That sounds like Jacob minus the dangerous."

"Yeah, I didn't mean anything by it. That's just how my sister would describe him. Alice is a weird girl." He added with a fond laugh.

"You sound close. Are you close with your brother, too?" She was an only child and found sibling relationships fascinating. The closest thing to a brother she had growing up was Jake. And considering the amount of sex they had, she suspected it wasn't very close at all.

"Not as close as Alice is. They were adopted at the same time and they've always sort of like clutched at each other. Like when Alice got into some play at last minute and had to delay her flight, we all knew Jasper would be delaying his." He shrugged. "They're pretty tight."

"I didn't know you were adopted." She said. Although in retrospect, the handsome, young Dr. Cullen and his beautiful wife did seem young to be the parents of three teenagers.

Edward, who's footsteps had paced her own, suddenly slightly outpaced her. "I am." He informed her simply, clearly having no wish to discuss this further.

Before she could think of anything remotely close to appropriate to say, she noticed a man holding a sign with **CULLEN **written on it. "I think there's our ride."

The sign-holder was not a mere chauffer but an acutal pilot. James was a rather ordinary looking man in a backwards Red Sox cap who preferred to be called Jimmy. He drove them to a private airfield at a neck breaking pace, the smoke of his marbolo cigarette filling the tiny truck.

"We didn't expect to leave so early. What changed?" Bella asked curiously. Edward again had his headphones in and didn't seem to care or notice that they were about to be the first people in the history of organized flight to leave early.

"Bad weather heading this way," Jimmy's head tilted to the sky. "I figure if we leave now, we can get there before the first rain drop falls and spare you guys the island in chaos. And me, well, I've got a pretty little redhead that doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Bella's stomach dropped. "Is it safe?"

Jimmy laughed. "I've been flying since I was the kid's age. I know what I'm doing and no girl is worth a plane crash."

And that was that. But Bella couldn't help but feel uneasy when they got in a small plane that couldn't seat more than six.

Even Edward, who so far had proven to fit the stereotype of a self centered teen to the t, noticed her slight look of panic when she belted her seat belt, "I've been on little planes like this dozens of times before. They're perfectly safe. And my parents wouldn't hire less than the best."

"Damned staight I'm the best." Jimmy said without looking back. "But if it makes you feel better, these waters are dotted with dozens of little islands to land on and if we couldn't get to those this baby is equipped with a mighty expensive life raft."

EBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEEBEBEBEBEB

Edward tried not to show Bella when his nerves turned. She'd been spooked since the takeoff in Seattle with no reason and there was definitely reason to be nervous now. They had only been flying for about fifteen minutes when the sky lost any hint of blue and it began to look closer to black than grey. Even the pilot looked concerned by the sudden weather shift.

Jimmy cursed ripely. "I'm going to go off course to go around this, it's coming in a lot sooner and more north than it was supposed to."

"Should we turn around?" Bella's voice shook.

"Wouldn't do any good, that's where the weather's going. And Thai in a tysoon isn't a pretty thing. You'll lose you're watch and get trampled."

After that, the three of them were silent, staring ahead, each lost in their own state of terror. Edward lost track of the time, only knowing it seemed endless and that the sky became more severe the further they flew. Then came the flashes of lightning that illuminated the frighteningly dark morning sky.

Jimmy broke the silence. "You should put on the life vests, they're in the little cabinet." I took them, and the compact black bag with a shoulder strap out.

EBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBBE

Bella's hands were shaking badly. She could barely fasten the lifevest Edward handed to her. She couldn't help but be suprised at how smoothly and quickly he got his own on, with perfectly competent hands. Jimmy declined his altogether.

"What should we do, if, if we go down?" She stuttered out. Edward wasn't going to ask and she was the adult, the responsible party. She might feel like vomiting, but that didn't matter.

She expected the pilot to deny such a thing as plausible, but he did not. "You don't want to be in the plane when it crashes, you want to get out before then. If land is nearby you do your damndest to get there, the ocean means death. Even being in the raft on open sea will only delay death if you're nowhere near land." He said very seriously.

"What do we do when we get to land?" This was from Edward. Bella supposed a tysoon would rattle even the most apathetic of teenagers into asking questions.

"If you're lucky, you've got the raft and emergency kit with you. That'll help. Either way, you start a fire and find water." He fished the bic lighter of his jeans and tossed it in the backseat. "You guys can fight amongst yourself for my lucky lighter. I don't think I'll be able to get out of this damned seat fast enough to use it. And I can't even fucking see out the windshield never mind land below."

Edward held it up, quirking his brow at her, but she shook her head. "We're all going to be fine. Everything's okay."

As if by some ironic fate, the lighting chose that time to strike, hitting the plane solidly and causing it to blink and surge. The plane pitched forth, diving quickly. Edward opened the door, the emergency bag on his back. "Should we jump?" He called out, to either Jimmy or Bella or God, but no one answered. "I see land." He added, right before he jumped.

And Bella did the only thing that made the slightest sense in that moment and followed him.

EBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBE

The water was cold and choppy and it felt like razor burn all over his skin. Except his ribs. It felt like someone motherfucking punched him there. He paddled furiously, not letting himself think about how much it hurt to move, only focusing on the nearby land.

The only thing that jarred him was the distinct thud of the plane hitting the water. He looked back, couldn't help himself, and experienced the greatest feeling of relief in his life when he saw Bella doggy paddling from the carnage. She had jumped. He looked past her, half expecting to see the pilot cursing up a storm and trying to clutch on to his baseball cap, but all he saw was relentless storm and towering waves.

One of those waves came in and, instead of sending him under, sent him right to shore- giving life when it so easily could have taken it.

EBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBE

Fear propelled Bella and robbed her numb of emotion. She didn't think of the dead pilot or the boy ahead of her swimming with great finesse. She didn't think of the island ahead or what it would hold for her. She didn't think of death. She didn't think at all. She didn't even feel the rain that poured down or the water she was submerged in. She just swam.

When she reached the shore, she felt no sense of relief, just a bizzare feeling of surreal as it became shallow enough to walk. She collapsed on the shore, devoid.


End file.
